


A Time for Feeling Good

by stateofintegrity



Category: Rush (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:14:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7632088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neil overhears his bandmates and expresses some concerns about the intensity of their ardor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

(Neil's Point of View)

 

The first time that I heard them, I didn’t feel at all scandalized. In fact, I was happy that they’d finally figured it out, gotten it together. I’ll give – the outside angle was a little mystifying to me, but, then, my bandmates have never been the most conventional of individuals. But lately things have sounded, well… _intense_. I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m concerned – mostly for Geddy. I know he isn’t anywhere near as fragile as Lerxst makes him out to be, but he’s a delicate little thing all the same. And, since it’s Lerxst who started the whole Mythology of Geddy (as I like to think of it) – which, by the way, borders on Geddy worship! – you think he’d have better sense. So, even though it isn’t my business or my place, I’m going to have to have a word with Lerxst. Of course, it’s all those words of mine that got me my nickname: Pratt. It’s short for PRATTLE, but my bandmates imagine that I don’t know that part.

 

          I corner Lerxst at the first available opportunity, ducking into his room one afternoon and closing the door. I’m not going to say what I have to say in front of Geddy (he’d probably faint from embarrassment) so the first part of my mission is to make sure we’ll be left alone. “Where’s your sidekick?” I ask, trying to sound casual and not quite making it.

          Lerxst is on the floor fiddling with a whammy bar that has made the very foolish mistake of displeasing him. “He’s taking a nap.”

          Considering what I’ve heard of their night-play, I can imagine he’d need one! Standing far enough back that I can probably dodge a punch if I have to, I begin. “Alex, can I… can I ask you something?”

          He gives me a why-are-you-pussy-footing-around look that reminds me that we’ve shared close quarters for the last five years, from the whirlwind kick-off tour through this latest creation: _Permanent Waves_. Hell, Lerxst probably has enough blackmail on me to make me stop “prattling” permanently if he’s so inclined! Which, I guess, is enough for me to be straight with him. “I, uh… I heard you guys last night.”

          I expect my guitarist to flush or cough or show some sign of embarrassment. But then, it’s Lerxst – the least body-shy person I know. Why should he get embarrassed by something as simple as sex? “Yeah, we’ve been having a pretty good time.”

          This, to me, is an epic understatement, but I let it pass in order to forward my main agenda: project ease-up-on-the-bassist. Maiming him would, I hastily rationalize, be bad for business. “Don’t you think you’re being a little bit hard on him?”

          He gives me a strange look. “Dirk? He gives as good as he gets, trust me.”

          This is not going well – though I am learning things that I never, ever wanted to know. “Sure… but aren’t you worried about, uhmm, hurting him?”

          This time the strange look ratchets up a notch to what-are-you-smoking-Professor. “He doesn’t _have_ to jump for those crazy serves. He could just give me the points.”

          My turn for a strange look. “What!?”

          “He’s competitive. If he’d leave that acrobatic crap on stage, I wouldn’t have to make such wild serves to try to win. It’s not like the man’s going to get drafted to the Olympic Midnight Volleyball team!”

          Oh. “Volleyball,” I murmur, feeling incredibly stupid despite my 160 I.Q.

          “Yeah, volleyball. What were you talking about?”

          Leave it to Lerxst to pick up on my sudden discomfort. Confronted, I blush like wild, try to say it was nothing, and get closer to the door. Alex, unfortunately, isn’t buying. “Pratt? What did _you_ think we were doing?”

          Oh, fuck. I hold my hands to my head and groan. “Please don’t make me say it.”

          I can see him calculating, trying to determine what would both hurt Geddy and embarrass me to talk about. I actually see the answer come to him as his full lips quiver with laughter. “Oh, wow, Professor. This should give me bragging rights for a _long time_.” He trembles with laughter and I resist the urge to kick him. “I’m kind of offended, too. You think I’d ever do anything to hurt Dirk?”

          Gnashing my teeth, I glare at him. “I was just… concerned. Thanks for not punching my lights out, by the way.”

          Another confused look. “For what? Worrying about Dirk? I’m the president of _that_ particular club. I don’t mind a second member.”

          “For suggesting you’d… you know...” I don’t quite clarify, refusing to say _go to bed with your best friend._

          He shrugs. “Nothing to apologize for there, Pratt. If that was what Ged wanted… well, I’ll try anything once.”

          My eyes make a rush at their sockets, straining to be free. What results must be one funny bug-eyed look because Lerxst is laughing again, busy fingers still patiently at work on his guitar. “What!? You’d sleep with Geddy?”

          “ _You_ just accused me of sleeping with him,” he points out, still smiling. “You sounded a whole lot less scandalized then, too.”

          “It’s just… you know…” I am actually out of words. Recognizing the magnitude of such an accomplishment, Alex gives a satisfied whistle and waits for me to find my voice. When I fail, he offers to explain.

          “Look, I’ve taken care of Dirk for my whole life. I _do_ love the guy. If that was something he wanted, something that would make him happy, well, I wouldn’t say no.”

          His voice sounds incredibly casual, the same as it would if we were discussing amplifiers, say, or tour venues. But his eyes give him away. In my bumbling attempts at protecting Geddy from… Christ… midnight-fucking-volleyball!... I’ve stumbled into something else entirely.

          _Heaven, hell and the Tobes of Hades…!_ “You’re in love with him.”

          I feel distant from myself, an effect of shock. I can’t believe I missed something this big for this long. They’re practically my family after all! A hundred memories come to light in new and surprising ways and my entire time with Rush starts to make more sense, from Alex’s jealousy during my audition to all the time they spend together off of the road. I repeat myself, surer now, “You’re in love with him.”

          “One ridiculous accusation isn’t enough for one day?”

          “You are,” I insist. “And you were when I auditioned.” I search his face. “You’ve never told a soul, have you?”

          Finally. A reaction. Ghost-white, his eyes widen and their color seems to amplify. _What an impossible shade of blue_ , I think stupidly as he whispers, “How the hell can you know all that?”

          I’m actually as surprised as he is. But it’s there to be read by anyone that has eyes to see. “It’s in your face, Lerxst,” I gently tell my stunned guitarist. “It’s in how you speak to him or how you hold yourself under his eyes. Alex, you have to tell him.”

          Deflecting with his Lerxst persona, he teases me about my own confession. “Truth is good for the soul, eh?”

          “Better for your night life than _volleyball_ ,” I press. “Lerxst, you’ve never given me occasion to call you a coward. You already said you take good care of him. No one else is.”

          Alex trembles. “What if he doesn’t want me?”

          “How could he not?” I ask, half playfully, half truthfully. “C’mon Lerxst. You’re our risk taker, our confident one. Look, you’re going to play volleyball with him again soon, right? Ask him then. Then, I’ll have a reason to tease you about what you’re doing under the stars!”

          He doesn’t agree, but I hope that our talk will at least have him thinking.


	2. Chapter 2: Alex's Point of View

Geddy crows with delight as another of my serves goes right into the ground – on _my_ side of the net. I can’t help it. I’ve got more than volleyball on my mind. Like the fact that I’ve always loved him, for instance. The day we became friends, our hands touched as I helped him up from the hallway floor. Some bullies had been using him as a punching bag and he’d slid down the front of a locker to the floor. I got rid of them with my own fists, splitting the skin on my knuckles. My blood mingled with his when we touched, making us blood brothers from the start and something electric coursed between the two of us as I got him to his feet, brushed his long hair away from his black eye. Broken and bleeding, he was still beautiful. I think I was in love with him even then. But how to show him that I’m in love with him – that I’ve been in love with him for years – now?

          Neil made it all sound so simple. “Tell him. Ask him.” As if I hadn’t already asked him for so much. My beautiful best friend has already made his share of sacrifices for me, dropping out of high school, defying his family, enduring the hardships of making it on the road. Hell, he’s probably single because of me, too. Being on the road two hundred plus days of the year does nothing for your love life, unless you want to start sleeping with fans, and we all agreed early on that nothing good could come of _that_. I wish I had the strength or the faith to believe that something good could come from taking him into my arms. Even if he could want me, which feels impossible on its face, won’t I be putting him in an awful position? Neil might not have a problem with it, but not everyone has his liberal disposition. I don’t think I can stand to see Geddy abused again – even if it’s only in words. He takes enough flack for his looks, for his voice. And I’d be asking him to give up any thoughts of a family. That isn’t fair. Maybe the best thing to do is to forget the whole thing. I’ve loved him for this long and kept my mouth shut – what’s the rest of my life?

          It’s then that I notice that he’s holding the ball, standing just across the net from me. The night wind is in his hair, making it shift across his slender shoulders, and his mouth is parted a little from our exertions. That old familiar need rises in my belly and I almost laugh, thinking what that volleyball net represents. Though thin and riddled with holes, it makes a good stand in for all the things that keep me from reaching out for him. His eyes look strange, but all he says is, “Wanna take a break?”

          We cross the dew-damp grass to sit on the top of a covered well. The cover is a slanted surface – almost a roof – with the well buried deep beneath it. It’s become customary to end our games here listening to the gurgle of water below and the rustle of fir trees around us before heading back to bed with grass-stained knees and feet. It strikes me suddenly (maybe I’m channeling the Professor) that maybe our late night games are a surrogate for me. I can’t have sex with Geddy, but I can at least exhaust myself with him and watch his beautiful body while I do.

          My best friend turns to me in the dark. “What’s on your mind, Ali?”

          I shiver and it has nothing to do with my sweat-damp body drying in the wind. He so rarely calls me that anymore, and it always turns me on _so much_. “What do you mean?”

          A soft snort answers me; Dirk’s way of saying that we’ve been friends too long for me to think of getting anything more than a volleyball past him. “You’ve been all over the place tonight. A couple of times I think you were on Mars. I won two out of three – and easily, too. Something’s bothering you.”

          “Maybe you’re just getting a lot better at volleyball.” He shoves me and I tingle from even that slight contact. “Tell me, Lerxst.”

          “I want to,” I admit, voice cracking against strained vocal chords. If this ends badly, I might break down in front of him, and that’s not even the worst case scenario. “But I’m afraid.”

          Despite the sweat, he places an arm around my shoulder and squeezes. “I’m not all that intimidating, Lerxst. And you’re my best friend. You should know there isn’t anything you can’t tell me.”

          Mostly to myself, I whisper my greatest fear. “I don’t want to lose my best friend.” _Not even for that, Dirk. Not even to gain you as a lover._

And then, as if miracles were real, he touches his lips to my cheek. It’s less than a kiss, but more than I’ve ever had of him and probably more than I deserve. “You can’t,” he says against my skin, and I have to believe him.

          “Aww, Ged…” I don’t know how to do this, but maybe Pratt’s right after all. Maybe he deserves to know.

          He grabs my hand, offering strength. And then he surprises me again. “Let me help. Yes, I do feel exactly the same way about you and yes, I do want to belong to you.”

          I’m not sure whether I should laugh or cry or pass out cold. I know I sound deliriously happy – or at least delirious. “What!?”

          “It’s what you’ve been wrestling with yourself about, right? Us?”

          “There’s an us?” I manage stupidly.

          “If you want there to be. C’mon, tell me I haven’t been misreading those looks you’ve been giving me.”

          I gasp, wondering why the oxygen level of the planet seems to have been so suddenly depleted. “I didn’t realize I was being that obvious about it,” I admit at last. I should be chagrined, but I’m too damn happy to have his hand in mine.

          “Why else would I agree to midnight volleyball?” he asks, gently shoving me. “I just like to see the starlight in your hair.”

          I recover a little. I’m still breathing. And he might be mine. Trying to tease despite the emotions surging through me, I ask, “Anything else you want to see?”

          He casts a glance around the darkness: the star-studded sky, the lush grass. “Right here?”

          “Nobody’s stumbled on us so far,” I point out.   _And Neil’s already **used** to the noise. _

Agreeing wordlessly, he takes some of my joy from me when he strips out of his shirt himself, but then the entire situation catches up to me and a smile almost splits my face. He likes the silent compliment of that smile; I can tell by the way a gentle flush fires beneath his naked skin. If not for that flush, he’d be the color of snow – an impossible white that seems to promise flecks of silver… but maybe I’m just tangling the look of him with the sound of that voice of his, and why am I not _moving_?!? Fingers trembling, I work on my shirt open, draw my arms out of the sleeves until it’s just hanging off of my shoulders. His green eyes smile at me, as if to say, “There. That’s better.” But then his eyes drop lower and he’s staring right at my waistband. He lets me see him look lower still, as if he could push my zipper down with his eyes. I only just suppress a moan, amazed to find him with the upper hand when I never imagined he could ever want this. I don’t know if I merely _think_ his name, or if I’m murmuring it over and over – but I don’t stop even when his tongue darts inside of my mouth.

          I freeze again, let him take over, and my passivity triggers something wonderful in him. Tongue playing with mine, he takes me down into the grass, and shoves his hand down my pants. Shameless, I rise into his searching fingers and hear him gasp. “I knew you’d feel like that,” he murmurs and I realize for the first time that he’s been waiting too – _wanting_ too. “Just like that.”

          His voice in my ears and his slow, stroking fingers have me much too close to a brink I don’t want to pass over yet. And though I’m happy to let him take the lead, I want more of him than the hard knob of need I feel pressing into my thigh. I want to know if the head of _his_ cock is as wet as mine… I _want_ …


	3. Chapter 3: Geddy's point of view

I’ve known the smell of his skin for almost my entire life, but being allowed to nuzzle against his neck where his pulse flutters like some living thing… I don’t have any comparisons. Moving on instinct combined with fantasy, I move from his shirt to his chest, kissing above his heart. His panting breath urges me and his eyes seek mine – dazed and desperate. I never imagined I could make him look like that – especially with my hair wind-tousled and my knees and elbows grass stained – and I laugh with this new joy that sings in me. _Oh Ali,_ I think, fingers hovering over the sacred boundary-line of his waistband, _I didn’t even have to beg._ He shoots me another look – one that says that I could make him beg if I wanted to. Crawling down his body, I bow my head between his legs.

          The silly lanterns we’ve rigged to allow us to play volleyball and the night shadows mingle and blend, so that I learn my lover’s body for the first time through touch as much as sight (though I promise myself a good long look in the morning light). As I allow my fingers to graze him – almost accidentally – he makes a keening sound and pins my wrist, makes me touch him fully. The thickness is a surprise and I fumble a bit with the foreskin before I find a rhythm that makes him rock up and down in the grass.

          “Oh, Ged,” he moans and I smile again, amazed that he can mean all that he seems to say when he speaks my name. Then he’s breathless again under my touch, trying to swallow the night-cool air and a scream at the same time. His shirt is still tangled around his shoulders but does nothing to hide the white expanse of his stomach, his abdomen bisected by a treasure trail of golden hair leading down to the beautiful cock I’ve wrapped my fingers around. He sucks in his stomach and I watch him trembling down even to his toes and I know he’s right at the edge. Bending my neck, I dare all and draw him into my mouth. He finishes there with a scream that chimes against the low lying stars.

          Savoring his taste, I brush his blond hair back from his face until he looks up at me and smiles that Lerxstish grin of his. “I like ‘us,’” he teases.

          “I knew you would,” I return.

          He’s every inch the Lerxst (even the still half-hard inches I can’t wait to play with again) when he gives me a questioning look. “You weren’t just letting me win at volleyball so you could seduce me, were you?”

          The absurdity of the question – of him – has me doubled up with laughter even in undress. When he lifts my mirth-shaken form into his arms, I realize that Lerxst isn’t so bad at plotting himself. I should mind being carried like this, but I just press my forehead to his, an old affectionate gesture. “Where are we going, Ali?”

          “To play something a lot more fun than volleyball,” he answers. Softer, mostly to himself, he adds, “And to scandalize our drummer for real this time!”

          Lying back in his bed, I decide that my life can use a touch of the scandalous – and lots of touches from him!

 

End!


End file.
